Reflections on Matthew 15

Matthew 15 (Contemporary English Version)


1. About this time some Pharisees and teachers of the Law of Moses came from Jerusalem. They asked Jesus,
   
2. "Why don't your disciples obey what our ancestors taught us to do? They don't even wash their hands before they eat."
   
3. Jesus answered: Why do you disobey God and follow your own teaching?
   
4. Didn't God command you to respect your father and mother? Didn't he tell you to put to death all who curse their parents?
   
5. But you let people get by without helping their parents when they should. You let them say that what they have has been offered to God.
   
6. Is this any way to show respect to your parents? You ignore God's commands in order to follow your own teaching.
   
7. And you are nothing but show-offs! Isaiah the prophet was right when he wrote that God had said,
   
8. "All of you praise me with your words, but you never really think about me.
   
9. It is useless for you to worship me, when you teach rules made up by humans."
   
10. Jesus called the crowd together and said, "Pay attention and try to understand what I mean.
    
11. The food that you put into your mouth doesn't make you unclean and unfit to worship God. The bad words that come out of your mouth are what make you unclean."
    
12. Then his disciples came over to him and asked, "Do you know that you insulted the Pharisees by what you said?"
    
13. Jesus answered, "Every plant that my Father in heaven did not plant will be pulled up by the roots.
    
14. Stay away from those Pharisees! They are like blind people leading other blind people, and all of them will fall into a ditch."
    
15. Peter replied, "What did you mean when you talked about the things that make people unclean?"
    
16. Jesus then said: Don't any of you know what I am talking about by now?
    
17. Don't you know that the food you put into your mouth goes into your stomach and then out of your body?
    
18. But the words that come out of your mouth come from your heart. And they are what make you unfit to worship God.
    
19. Out of your heart come evil thoughts, murder, unfaithfulness in marriage, vulgar deeds, stealing, telling lies, and insulting others.
    
20. These are what make you unclean. Eating without washing your hands will not make you unfit to worship God.
    
21. Jesus left and went to the territory near the cities of Tyre and Sidon.
    
22. Suddenly a Canaanite woman from there came out shouting, "Lord and Son of David, have pity on me! My daughter is full of demons."
    
23. Jesus did not say a word. But the woman kept following along and shouting, so his disciples came up and asked him to send her away.
    
24. Jesus said, "I was sent only to the people of Israel! They are like a flock of lost sheep."
    
25. The woman came closer. Then she knelt down and begged, "Please help me, Lord!"
    
26. Jesus replied, "It isn't right to take food away from children and feed it to dogs."
    
27. "Lord, that's true," the woman said, "but even dogs get the crumbs that fall from their owner's table."
    
28. Jesus answered, "Dear woman, you really do have a lot of faith, and you will be given what you want." At that moment her daughter was healed.
    
29. From there, Jesus went along Lake Galilee. Then he climbed a hill and sat down.
    
30. Large crowds came and brought many people who were crippled or blind or lame or unable to talk. They placed them, and many others, in front of Jesus, and he healed them all.
    
31. Everyone was amazed at what they saw and heard. People who had never spoken could now speak. The lame were healed, the crippled could walk, and the blind were able to see. Everyone was praising the God of Israel.
    
32. Jesus called his disciples together and told them, "I feel sorry for these people. They have been with me for three days, and they don't have anything to eat. I don't want to send them away hungry. They might faint on their way home."
    
33. His disciples said, "This place is like a desert. Where can we find enough food to feed such a crowd?"
    
34. Jesus asked them how much food they had. They replied, "Seven small loaves of bread and a few little fish."
    
35. After Jesus had told the people to sit down,
    
36. he took the seven loaves of bread and the fish and gave thanks. He then broke them and handed them to his disciples, who passed them around to the crowds.
    
37. Everyone ate all they wanted, and the leftovers filled seven large baskets.
    
38. There were four thousand men who ate, not counting the women and children.
    
39. After Jesus had sent the crowds away, he got into a boat and sailed across the lake. He came to shore near the town of Magadan.
    

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In this chapter we see a contrast in faith and what appears to be a shift in Jesus taking His message of the kingdom to the Gentiles. First, Jesus has another encounter with the scribes and Pharisees who accuse Him and His disciples of breaking "the tradition of the elders." Rather than discrediting Jesus as they envisioned, they found themselves being discredited. Jesus charged them with a greater offense - breaking God's commandments. Over generations these religious leaders had built up traditions supposedly to better assure faithfulness to God's commandments, but they had instead come to replace God's commandments. In fact, tradition was often used to trump God's commands as in the case Jesus cited to them. We see similar practices today when traditions of the church become more important than obedience to God's instructions to us through scripture.

Jesus used this encounter to teach His disciples an important principle. It is not what goes into the mouth that defiles, but what comes out of the mouth. What comes out of the mouth comes from the heart, and it is what is in the heart that defiles a person. The concern over washing one's hands before eating, though a health concern, was not a spiritual concern. It had no effect on one's spiritual condition.

A contrast in faith follows this encounter with the religious leaders. Jesus' next stop was in in the area of Tyre and Sidon and there He was approached by a Canaanite woman, a Gentile, who begged Him to rid her daughter of a demon. Initially He ignored her saying He was sent to the "lost sheep of the house of Israel." When the woman persisted He told her "It isn't right to take the children's bread and throw it to their dogs." But the woman wasn't interested in depriving Israel of what belonged to Israel. She replied to Jesus, "yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters' table!" Don't take food from the children, but just allow a crumb to fall her way. Jesus saw great faith demonstrated by this woman and granted her request. If only He had seen such faith in Israel.

Jesus then moved on to an area along the Sea of Galilee where a large crowd of Gentiles gathered, or at least it is widely thought to be a Gentile crowd. Matthew did not explicitly refer to them as Gentiles. If indeed they were Gentile, this would appear to be a progression toward the Gentiles in Jesus ministry. At the beginning of this chapter is a rejection of Jesus by Jewish leaders followed by a Gentile woman of great faith, and then a Gentile crowd. Even though Jesus told the woman it was not right to feed the dogs (Gentiles) food belonging to the children (Israel), the children had rejected the food and it seems that Jesus is now taking it to the dogs. Another miraculous feeding takes place with this crowd which is very similar to the previous feeding. Could it be that in the first instance Jesus used the twelve (His apostles) to demonstrate His ministry through them to the Jewish people and in the second instance to the Gentile people? Though He used the twelve to feed both crowds physically in these instances, they would feed them spiritually in the future.